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While We're Gone: Mediterranean Basin
5 Million Years in the future...and the world has become lost in the cold wrath of one of Snow Miser's favorite time periods: The Ice Age. However, contrary to popular belief, not everywhere is a glorified ice box like northern Europe. Down south, we have a rather unusual situation that used to be a clear-blue paradise. Where once there was the great Mediterranean Sea, there now stands a vast salt flat, white as snow, but is anything but! But how, pray-tell, did this bit of Grade-A loony biosphere happen in the first place? I mean, even on this bizarre rock ball we call Earth, seas don't just evaporate like this! Well, it's more than just the ice caps increasing in length that's caused this; by 5 million years time, Africa has pushed up against Europe, closing the Straits of Gibraltar. The water evaporated over the years, driving countless fish species to extinction. And with no seawater flowing in from the Atlantic to replace it, the Mediterranean simply vanished, leaving but a few deep basins that are so salty, they could double as liquidated miso paste! Say for brine flies and brine shrimp, they're impossible to drink, lest you wish for death. But surprisingly, despite these hard conditions, there is indeed life beyond invertebrates. Namely, a frilled lizard far away from Australia called a Cryptile. Capable of running on its hind legs, this thin lizard is tailor-made for these hot-as-hell salt flats. Their feet hardly touch the ground, preventing their feet from becoming as baked as an overcooked pie in a Dutch oven. And those frills are more than just a crazy lizard hairdo, it's also a great fishing net for brine flies that thrive near the basin shores. Said frill has holes with a rather sticky substance, almost like glue or spider silk; and when flies get caught, the Cryptile uses its long tongue to lap them up. Not only are the brine flies food, they're also a decent source of water. It's kinda like canned spam, only slightly less disgusting. But it's not just where they live, these Cryptiles. They also carry out their courtship on the salt flats; the female choosing the best looking male for a courtship dash, and she'll mate with him if he keeps up with her. There's only one small problem with this plan for life: they can't lay eggs on the salt. They try that, and the salt'll kill the embryos by making them drier than Ben Stein at a political rally. So what they do? They go to one of the few non-salty areas of the basin: what's left of the old holiday islands like Crete, Rhodes, Cyprus, and Malta. In the future, though, they've become small mountains in the middle of this sea of salt, riddled with crevices called grykes, and only a select few creatures can survive here. Sadly, the Cryptiles aren't one of them. Not because they can't stand the limestone karst that became a staple of these mountains, but because they stick out like a sore thumb. Deep in the grykes, however, the eggs are safe from most predators if buried deep enough. The problem is that there is ''a predator; several in fact, and one in particular uses the grykes as its personal hideaway and hunting highway, like a carnivorous lemming! The prey: The Cryptile. The predator: A '''Gryken'! No, that's not a sound your throat makes when you cough and gag at the same time; it's a long, dagger-toothed predator descended from the pine martin. They're the main predators of this karst landscape, and wouldn't last a day outside the holiday islands. While not the biggest creature of these islands, it is big enough to hunt pretty much anything that isn't an adult version of its favorite prey: Small, tip-toeing pigs named Scrofas. Scrofas are the great descendants of one of our favorite mud-lovers, the wild boar. Common throughout the Mediterranean, they're one of the few animals to survive the lack of a forest home. And part of this is the fact that the porcine species is ostensibly Grade-A opportunists, eating tubers, lichen, fungi, Cryptile eggs if not buried deep enough, anything that's not a Gryken. Actually, lemme rephrase that; while technically, they won't kill one outright, the adult alpha males are arguably more dangerous than the Grykens themselves, and will ''kill one on sight to protect their families. They live in small herds, walking on elongated legs that act like those of a ballerina. The klipspringer is a creature that comes to mind regarding the Scrofa's gait. Their flexible snouts come in handy for sticking their heads down the grykes to find such vittles. But constantly putting your head in the ground can be rather...hazardous. Not just from the Grykens, who'll attack any young Scrofa that strays from the herd, but also from a nomadic troop of primates called '''Salt Hoppers'. These small monkeys are closely related to the Barbary macaques that once thrived in the Mediterranean mountains. Because of this already rocky lifestyle, the transition to karst wasn't that much of a problem. Of course, they too fear the Grykens, but to a lesser degree, as they will often use either small rocks or branches (if any small trees still remain among said rocks) to beat them off. But not every troop is so lucky, and even the cleverest monkey can end up as food for these slender martins. On a lighter note, I bet you're wondering just why they're called Salt Hoppers. Simple; these strange monkeys have developed extra-powerful jumping muscles in their arms and legs, allowing them to hop across both karst and salt with ease. This also gives them minimal contact with the salt pan, allowing them to be less likely to die from exhaustion. But it's not just the Grykens that the Salt Hoppers need to worry about; there's also a rather fierce reptile that can traverse both extremes of karst and salt with little effort. This is a powerful relative of the Nile Monitor known as the Nightwalker; they migrated from the African mainland when the sea closed off from the Atlantic. They normally hide in shallow grykes, away from the blazing sun, where they await the cool of night to hunt. They're about 10 feet long, and are the biggest reptiles in the basin's ecosystem. And as such, they'll hunt just about anything that isn't an adult Scrofa. These include, but aren't limited to; Grykens, Salt Hoppers, Cryptiles as they sleep, Cryptile eggs, Scroflets, and even young Nightwalkers if food is scarce. In 5 million years time, the Mediterranean has gotten drier than a stirred martini, turning a holiday paradise into a vast desert of salt. But life has a funny way of carrying on in these landscapes; giving rise to bizarre species, from frilled lizards that eat and drink flies, to a boar that walks like a ballerina. All this combined makes for a future that'd make Doc Brown keel over in amazement, and make creationists cringe at the idea. And it is only with these insane conditions can we make this unique, blazing, and often life-threatening Mediterranean Lost Sea! Category:While We're Gone Category:Future Earth Category:5 Million Years Category:Mediterranean Basin